Message from the President, Lennise Baptiste

Greetings to the CEI family and colleagues in this our first newsletter for 2016:

In September 2015, four board members: Wycliffe Abrams and Paul Williams of Guyana, Claudia Nicholson of Grenada-Canada and I met in Trinidad and Tobago to work on CEI’s strategic and work plans for 2016 and 2017. In the same month, four board members, Una McPherson, Curline Beckford, Paulette Griffiths and Chez Thomas, who reside in Jamaica, met to review the CEI by-laws. Valerie Gordon of Jamaica-USA joined each of the meetings virtually. I want to take this opportunity to thank each of our volunteer board members for the efforts they made to complete the two activities, thereby establishing the foundations for our organization.

For the remainder of 2016 and in 2017, the CEI will work on the strategic goals of:

Having a cadre of trained professionals in our membership and network,

Facilitating professional development opportunities through the establishment of strategic alliances with accredited tertiary institutions,

Becoming a forum to locate regional evaluators, and

Advocating in the region for the use of evaluation practices and methods across the professional sectors.

We’ve made great progress, co-hosting the 2016 Caribbean Urban Forum; achieving a 20% increase in membership in the past six months; and having individuals and organisations continue to reach out to CEI to locate appropriately qualified professional evaluators in our region. The CEI is also aligned with the efforts of our partner organisations, the International Organisation for Cooperation Evaluation (IOCE), and the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS) in pursuit of initiatives around the professionalization of the evaluation profession. CEI plans to increase its efforts in the areas of research on regional evaluations; building the demand for, and acceptance of evaluation activities; and securing funding opportunities to expand our professional development thrust. Read future articles to learn more about our agenda.

We are proud to be able to publish this issue in Spanish for distribution to our regional and international partners. I thank board member Molly Hamm and our executive director, Una McPherson for making this happen. Future issues will also be published in French to reach our diverse partners.

The Caribbean Evaluators International was very honoured to be a co-host of the Caribbean Urban Forum (CUF) 2016, at the conference held in Paramaribo, Suriname April 27-29.

The forum implemented by Caribbean Network for Urban and Land Management (CNULM), of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Trinidad and Tobago, brought together urban and land managers, policy makers, academics and allied professionals interested in urban and land issues within the Caribbean in an effort to further advance land and urban management within the region.

Diverse organisations with a similar focus on this aspect of regional development, jointly co-hosted the CUF with the CNULM, including the Caribbean Local Economic Development Project (CARILED), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UHABITAT), and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.

Dr. Lennise Baptiste, CEI President, brought greetings on behalf of CEI at the opening ceremony. Along with board members Claudia Nicholson and Paul Williams, Dr. Baptiste presented an introductory workshop on results-based monitoring and evaluation (RBM&E) for the Urban Sector. Baptiste also chaired sessions with presentations in the sub-theme of Sustainable Urban Development and Monitoring and Evaluation.

Participation in the CUF marks another milestone in the efforts to build and promote the CEI, which has been an ongoing effort for the last three years. Since M&E is a theme that affects all professional sectors, the CEI is keen to work closely with all the regional urban planning associations to examine the gap between rhetoric and reality, and support solutions to address this matter. The CEI will continue to seek strategic collaboration opportunities as it advocates for the use of evaluation to achieve our development results in the areas of sustainable urban development, but most importantly, for how we advocate for the use of evaluation to illuminate the value of the development work being undertaken in the region across sectors.

CEI Links with EvalAgenda 2020 through IOCE

by: Valerie Gordon, Vice President, Research & Publications

Valerie, a Jamaican national residing in Atlanta, Georgia, serves CEI as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors, and is involved in monitoring and evaluation.

Just one year after its establishment in 2014, the Caribbean Evaluators International joined the International Organization for Cooperation Evaluation (IOCE) as a Contributing Member. In so doing, the organisation became part of the growing community of VOPEs (Voluntary Organization for Professional Evaluation) benefitting from the opportunities for networking and institutional capacity development offered by IOCE. Under the IOCE, national and regional VOPEs in the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States and the Middle East share information intended to improve the field of evaluation.

The IOCE facilitates webinars and produces a newsletter in which identified experts in the evaluation field share their knowledge about evaluation methods, theories and practice. In addition, the IOCE promotes increased public awareness and globally validated evaluation by supporting VOPEs, such as CEI, with tools which contribute to good governance, effective decision making and strengthening the role of civil society.

IOCE is a founding member of the EvalPartners Initiative established in 2012 to build and strengthen the global network of relationships between existing and emerging VOPEs. EvalPartners was successful in promoting the declaration of 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation (EvalYear) during the Third International Conference on National Evaluator Capacities in São Paulo, Brazil, October 2013. The Year of Evaluation was highly successful, featuring some 90 events around the world involving international development agencies, governments, the private sector and civil society. Its aim was to advocate and promote evaluation and evidence-based policy making at international, regional, national and local levels.

The CEI is represented in some of the IOCE online forums of the Eval Agenda, and encourages the membership to access and review the agenda and the SDGs by utilising the links provided. Issues raised will be addressed in CEI webinars planned for 2016 and 2017.

Output versus Outcome and Why It Matters In Evaluation

by: Claudia Nicholson, VP of Evaluation for the CEI Board

Claudia, CEI Vice President, is an evaluator and researcher from the island of Grenada and currently spends her time between Grenada and Canada.

This is the first in a series of articles that will examine topics and tips in evaluation. Each issue of the CEI newsletter will tackle one topic on the fundamentals of evaluation. “Output versus Outcome” was selected as the first topic after I came across one too many monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plans and project documents that invariably listed outputs as outcomes. However, if we are to evaluate whether development projects in the Caribbean are making a difference, we must evaluate for results by properly defining and looking at outcomes.

Evaluating for results, also known as results-based monitoring and evaluation (RBM&E) is looking for answers to “So what?” It calls for assessing and measuring what results or changes (i.e., outcomes) logically flowed from the inputs, activities, and outputs of a programme. Was there a change in access? Was there a change in ability? Was there a change in skill? Was there a change in behaviour or practice? These changes are usually stated as the results or outcomes that the programme aims to accomplish. Changes in access, ability or skill are examples of immediate results, while change in behaviour is usually an intermediate outcome.

The inputs, activities, and outputs make up the desired path for getting to the outcomes. Inputs are the financial, human and material resources that go into a programme (e.g., funding, staffing, and equipment). Activities are the tasks undertaken by the programme (e.g., delivering training, sensitizing the general public, advocating for legislative changes). Outputs are the products produced or services delivered through the programme’s activities (e.g., training, a workshop, a new legislation, or a new community centre).

It is easier to measure programme inputs, activities and outputs, than it is to measure outcomes. Outputs are usually tangible, can be counted, built, or budgeted. If it can be counted, bought or built it is an output!

Traditionally, evaluation focused on programme implementation and stopped at measuring outputs. However, to determine whether a programme is making a difference or is achieving its goal, it is critical to look at outcomes, positive and negative, intended and unintended, that resulted from the outputs.

Professional Development with CEI

Webinars and coaching sessions will be held for the membership on topics such as:

Evaluation and the SDGs

Results-based M&E

Empowerment Evaluation

Ethical Dilemmas

Working in the Region - Issues.

Culturally Responsive Evaluation

Look out for webinar announcements by email and on our Facebook page.

Below are other upcoming Conferences and Workshops that may be of interest to our members.

Caution: Before signing up for any of the courses, conferences or workshops mentioned below, please conduct your own due diligence.

Conferences
The American Evaluation Association (AEA) conference takes place
October 24-29, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. To know more check out AEA’s website www.eval.org. AEA’s pre-conference workshops are also worth checking out.

The European Evaluation Society Biennial Conference takes place
September 28 -30, 2016 in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Details here: http://www.ees2016.eu.

The African Evaluation Association (AfrEA) will host their 8th International Conference in Uganda in the first quarter of 2017. The exact date of the conference will be announced at a later time.

Online Workshops
The Claremont Evaluation Center (http://www.cgu.edu/claremontevalcenter) is offering their summer Professional Development Workshop Series on Evaluation and Applied Research Methods from August 18-23, 2016. There are 23 one-day workshops for you to choose from, taught by leading experts in the field. Scholarships are available to support evaluators working in, or originally from the Caribbean. The last day for submitting applications is August 12, 2016. For applications or to know more send an email to Richard.Dowlat2@cgu.edu.

PCMi Limited is a Registered Education Provider with the Project Management Institute and is UK-based. Their ongoing online courses include “Introduction to Monitoring and Evaluation,” “Monitoring and Evaluation for Practitioners,” “Making Monitoring and Evaluation Systems that Work,” and “Results Based Monitoring and Evaluation.” Check out the details here: http://www.pcmi.co.uk/CMS/.

The UIA Round Table is an educational seminar where associations meet to learn through networking and practice, and to share experience and knowledge. For full details, please see the Round Table website.

All questions and requests for additional information should be directed to the respective contacts on the links above.